It is true that AI could displace middle management but to certain extend. For example, AI can't completely replace certain white collar profession that need major decision making where EQ comes to play like making deals and persuasion for sales. For example in the health industry, AI might alleviate the burden of the primary care physician but does one prepared to fully trust on AI in an emergency setting? In the security enforcement industry, The precision of AI in weaponry science is impeccable but it real life operation we preferred human decision to AI decision in execution of the machine as it is a matter of life and death. What do you think?

Yes this could happen in the future, now it is too early to me. Workplace increased automation and routine job can be performed by machines. Cognitive and non-routine is still challenging for machines. Here it is with an interesting article about this topic, https://www.cio.com.au/article/632470/middle-manager-ai-may-take-your-job/

I do not think that AI will take over managerial roles. People are not machines. People need relationships. Do you think that a robot will create orders or tasks to employees based on the real data with logic and intuition?.... I see something opposite symptoms in some groups - slow living, eco-living, eco-villages, etc. On the other hand I watched a documentary about a Japanese man who married a robot. It is really pity. It looks the humanity stops to be human or people start to have psychic health issues because of that. In businesses 60-70% processes can be automated but not all of them. More over our world is changing, new products, new services and companies have to be flexible. I remember my projects in AI/analytics/reports 8 years ago. We created many dashboards, triggers, analytical rules but after a half a year they were obsolete. You have to update and control what AI presents, how collects data from what sources, etc. I read about the lawyers and their analysts roles will disappear because of AI boosted search engines. I hope that we do not see the "Minority report" world on our eyes. I also noticed that HR adapts AI to their role. My personal experience is horrible - no answers, a network of black wholes, no real job offers. I do not like it at all.

AI could replace the middle management level but it will not replace human work force completely . For example even though AI could make good decision base on data, memory and statistical analysis but its EQ is incomparable to a human. We could replace middle managements and skill workers with AI but human is still needed to over see their job, to confirm the decision whether to execute or not when it is related to a serious issue with numerous repercussion if complication arise. Hence there might be a replacement of middle management but other job opportunity might be created at the same time. The status of the company management level is merely a title but different job title and responsibility could always be created in a new and creative way. I hope that i could transmit my idea across even though it sound a little complex. Let me know if you need any clarification as i am wiling to discuss more to clarify my stand point.

A.I. REPLACING PHYSICIANS TOO?

The top 14 sources of secondary income for doctors, according to the Medical Economics magazine’s annual survey, are:

• consulting (23% of respondents),
• other medical work (19%),
• clinical work (13%),
• expert witness (12%),
• teaching (11%),
• nursing home (9%),
• speaking (9%),
• hospice (7%),
• urgent care (5%),
• locum tenens (4%),
• preceptor (4%),
• clinical trials (3%),
• military (2%), and
• telemedicine (1%).

Any thoughts?

It is not just AI that is reducing the need for management. “Six particular forces are alive today that are challenging both the legitimacy of managerial power and the wisdom of managerial elites” Jules Goddard

This fact may not be all that true. AI is still maturing and the way how it will replace the jobs is still not known completely.

For many years, decision support systems and later AI tools have been used for medical diagnosis. AI can be extended to any decision-making environment. Normally, this aims to increase the accuracy and consistency of such decisions. Really, it's just a further step in office automation and frees up the need to make simple decisions and helps us to focus on the more complex decisions.

The practical application of Artificial Intelligence is still in its formative stages, and there have been some successes, but widespread acceptance and use in broad cross cuts of vertical industries is still way off in the future. It is in some ways similar to the advance and progression of the desktop computer as hardware got faster, more powerful, and cheaper, and there was a point that software needed to catch up with its sophistication and harness the power of the CPUs, while Operating Systems got smarter and handled more functions automatically. It took years for computers to become ubiquitous, and there is still an unmeet need that will be fueled by newer faster, more powerful, and economical systems. The software, specifically the AI systems and component applications, need to catch up to the point where everyone will be able to harness the AI for their own purposes, using the cloud or the desktop, the future holds much promise for AI, but no single application or company has emerged to bring it to the masses, not even Microsoft, or Apple, or open source unix.

AI is in its infancy; we may see this happen in the future, but AI has not started to replace middle management yet. AI as of right now can only perform basic tasks or make decisions with clear, simple criteria/decision rules and outcomes.

Instead, middle management will become more important given the proliferation of AI. The quality of work performed by and decisions made by AI will require review by humans. Who or what middle managers manage will change, but as a result of AI middle managers will become more important.

On the topic of whether AI will displace middle management, I believe that if you accept that management control is currently structured to manage collections of people and functions, that with the introduction of AI to specific functions performing the workload of one or more employees it might depend upon how many AI uses were managed by a middle manager.

One middle manager will likely manage a small team consisting of subject matter expertise, programmer/system administrator, and possibly multiple SMEs as an effective and productive unit. I think it doubtful that the middle manager fuction of the group which is directed by upper management will be displaced by AI for a long time. Pressed into service to augment decision making used as amiddle manager tool more likely.

I think we should look at AI as component of the workforce that still needs to be managed. As long as the organization's management is hierarchical, there will be place for middle management to oversee AI and human co-workers.. Just that, in the short term, AI will reduce the team size in certain aspects, but in turn increase team size in certain other aspects such as cyber security, energy management and compliance. However, I bet teams would just reorganize around more avenues of activities that AI will make practical to explore than overall quantum of activity reducing.

The MIDDLE Man

You can take away the middleman - but not what he/she does!

DEMMING'S,

Maybe, but some of Demming's ideas on quality control have become antiquated  because of technology.